Dear Members and Constituents,
How much is a dollar worth, and why is it we freely devote countless hours to work for a paycheck? When you think about it, a dollar has no intrinsic worth. It is not a good building material and has questionable nutritional value (although I bet it’s rich in fiber). A hundred dollar bill probably costs about the same to produce as a one dollar bill (and I bet coins cost more to manufacture). The dollar is not even backed by precious metals (we did away with that in the ‘70s). So why is it so many folks around the world put their faith in the almighty dollar? If you give it some thought, I think you will agree it’s a matter of convenience and trust. Let’s face it, barter is very bulky and inconvenient (How many hams for that plasma T.V.?), so we choose to trust we will be able to exchange these dollars for the goods we need and want. We trust the value of our dollars will remain relatively constant over time. By extension we trust dollars will remain relatively rare and that the folks with the printing machines won’t make too many of them. We even put the word “trust” on the bills themselves (next to the word God, no less –talk about subliminal reinforcement).
Now the purchasing power of our dollars is not constant and the folks with the printing machines do tweak the throttle to increase or decrease our buying power a tad. In-fact, it is being suggested that a good way to decrease unemployment and get the economy going might be to devalue the dollar. If you decrease the value by 10%, you’re effectively decreasing everyone’s pay (and life savings) by about that much, so you could theoretically take that money out of our collective pockets and use it to hire that 10% of Americans who are actively searching for jobs. I realize it does not quite work that way (you have to factor-in greed and we do not have a closed economy… but that is the gist of it).
Fortunately these changes in purchasing power are usually gradual and most of us can still afford to buy donuts. That is certainly the case for Penny (our monetarily named donut girl who makes her debut this morning with five dozen Krispy Kremes). She was even able to afford an extra dozen to compensate for the fact KK’s are smaller than LaMar’s. Supply should certainly be able to keep pace with demand. Enjoy!
Happy Friday!
How much is a dollar worth, and why is it we freely devote countless hours to work for a paycheck? When you think about it, a dollar has no intrinsic worth. It is not a good building material and has questionable nutritional value (although I bet it’s rich in fiber). A hundred dollar bill probably costs about the same to produce as a one dollar bill (and I bet coins cost more to manufacture). The dollar is not even backed by precious metals (we did away with that in the ‘70s). So why is it so many folks around the world put their faith in the almighty dollar? If you give it some thought, I think you will agree it’s a matter of convenience and trust. Let’s face it, barter is very bulky and inconvenient (How many hams for that plasma T.V.?), so we choose to trust we will be able to exchange these dollars for the goods we need and want. We trust the value of our dollars will remain relatively constant over time. By extension we trust dollars will remain relatively rare and that the folks with the printing machines won’t make too many of them. We even put the word “trust” on the bills themselves (next to the word God, no less –talk about subliminal reinforcement).
Now the purchasing power of our dollars is not constant and the folks with the printing machines do tweak the throttle to increase or decrease our buying power a tad. In-fact, it is being suggested that a good way to decrease unemployment and get the economy going might be to devalue the dollar. If you decrease the value by 10%, you’re effectively decreasing everyone’s pay (and life savings) by about that much, so you could theoretically take that money out of our collective pockets and use it to hire that 10% of Americans who are actively searching for jobs. I realize it does not quite work that way (you have to factor-in greed and we do not have a closed economy… but that is the gist of it).
Fortunately these changes in purchasing power are usually gradual and most of us can still afford to buy donuts. That is certainly the case for Penny (our monetarily named donut girl who makes her debut this morning with five dozen Krispy Kremes). She was even able to afford an extra dozen to compensate for the fact KK’s are smaller than LaMar’s. Supply should certainly be able to keep pace with demand. Enjoy!
Happy Friday!
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